Shelter - Our House It’s Not a Home

I chose the Shelter campaign video “Our House. It’s Not a Home” because it uses the Madness song intertextually, creating a striking contrast between the nostalgic, comforting tone of the music and the harsh reality of overcrowded, insecure housing, which immediately engages viewers emotionally. The narrative represents homelessness not as an individual failure but as a systemic social injustice, encouraging empathy and prosocial behaviour, reflecting altruism by motivating viewers to feel moral responsibility and consider action. From an A-level media studies perspective, the video can be analysed through Parasocial Contact Theory, as it humanises marginalised individuals and reduces psychological distance. The advert also includes Social Responsibility frameworks, which demonstrate how media can activate societal awareness and moral engagement. The intertextuality of the song amplifies emotional impact, drawing on cultural memory to make the audience reflect on what it truly means to have a home, while prompting both affective and potentially active responses to social injustice.

Dixon’s analysis of Stuart Hall’s Representation Theory 

Stuart Hall’s Representation Theory chapter in the Media Theory for A Level: The Essential Revision Guide has changed how I think about media and my extra reading around his work has deepened this even further. Hall’s theory pushes representation beyond the idea of media simply “reflecting” reality, arguing instead that meaning is actively constructed through systems of signs. He also suggested that producers encode preferred meanings which audiences then decode in different ways. Through reading more about his encoding/decoding model and his ideas on preferred, negotiated and oppositional readings, I now understand audiences as active interpreters whose social and cultural backgrounds shape how they respond to texts. Additional reading on his work on stereotyping and power has also strengthened my grasp of the theory, as I now see stereotypes not just as clichés but as tools that can “fix” certain marginalised groups into narrow, negative meanings that support dominant ideologies. Overall, combining my original understanding with wider academic commentary from Dixon’s theory book has helped me to apply his theory more confidently in my own analysis, making my interpretations more critical, nuanced and aware of the power dynamics behind seemingly ordinary media representations.

 KERRANG! INTERVIEW WITH STUART WILLIAMS

To broaden my understanding of different media industries, I recently read an article in Media Magazine about Kerrang!. As someone with a strong passion for alternative music scenes and subcultures, the idea of one day working for Kerrang! really appeals to me. The article was an interview with Stuart Williams, publishing director of Kerrang!, in which he discussed his career in the media industry and how he secured his current position. His story helped me see the media as a cultural industry in the way Hesmondhalgh describes, balancing creativity with commercial pressures. The article made me more aware of how institutions carefully construct and maintain a distinctive brand identity. I was particularly interested in how Kerrang! represents its audience as part of an ‘outsider’ community, which links to Gauntlett’s ideas about identity and how media texts allow audiences to explore who they are. It also made me think about Hall’s representation theory, especially how certain groups and subcultures are encoded and then decoded by different audiences. Reading this interview has motivated me to research career paths within the media industries and has strengthened my ambition to become an editor, particularly in a role where I can shape representations and narratives around music, youth and alternative culture.

 MEDIA STUDIES - YEAR 12 MABEL RAE SAWYER